When a marriage is in crisis, both people are often suffering from unmet expectations, dashed hopes, stored resentments, impenetrable walls, quiet desperation, and even overt war. At such an intense emotional impasse—couples will fall into a mode of either fight-or-flight or frozen purgatory—and neither is the place from which to make life-altering decisions.
I have worked with thousands of men and women who come to me for a divorce because they had been living in pain for years without making any changes.
Compassionate Mediation® gives you the tools to make changes before divorce is the ONLY option, and if it becomes the final option, Compassionate Mediation® offers you a way to create a Compassionate SELF-led Divorce®.
For over 35 years, as a therapist, mediator and attorney, I have worked with thousands of individuals and couples who want to improve (or leave) their relationships. My heart goes out to each one of them. Often, I wish I had been able to help them years before our first visit, because they could have avoided the pain, anger or sadness that had affected their lives.
I can only see a limited number of clients in person each week, and my hope is to reach people everywhere with a message of self love, hope, possibility and happiness.
My goal in creating this course is to share what I have been doing for decades so that people all over the world could learn the skills of Compassionate Communication. You can learn how to heal the pain from your past, let go of limiting beliefs, connect to your spiritual source and relate from your highest and best SELF.
It’s no secret that half of all first marriages end in divorce. But it may be surprising to learn that the failure rates for second and third failed marriages get even worse: 67 and 73 percent, respectively, according to a 2012 article in Psychology Today, “The High Failure Rate of Second and Third Marriages.”
But what about the statistics on married people who are “thinking” about divorce?
Researchers estimate that 1 in 3 divorced couples try to reconcile later, according to a paper written by a noted marriage scholar and therapist. Also, a significant number of divorced individuals—about half—say they wished they or their spouse had tried harder to save the marriage.
In other words, divorce is all too common, and there’s a lot of regret out there. It’s these people—the ones at a crossroads of their marriage—that represent the primary market for this book, as well as those struggling with challenges in their marriage and seeking to make their union healthier, richer, deeper.
Compassionate Mediation®for Relationships at a Crossroadswill show you how to become more conscious of your own behaviors as you better understand yourself and your partner, and create something new, together.
I’ll share with you the secrets to becoming more empathetic and considerate.
You’ll finally be able to talk about every subject with clarity and courage, including finances, parenting, responsibilities, extended family, and sex.
You’ll learn how to ask for and get your needs met as you lower your “walls,” change the “filters” through which you see yourself and your partner, and forgive yourself and each other.
You’ll remember how to be grateful again for what you do have, and learn how to reflect the attention, affection, appreciation, and acceptance you both desire.
The world needs to be a safer place for marriage and divorce.
Children should be shielded from the shrapnel of their parents’ animosity. This book will offer a new paradigm for couples at a crossroads.
I believe that families need not be “broken,” but can be peacefully, and respectfully, restructured.
This bookwill give individuals and couples the roadmap they need—whether they choose to put passion into saving their marriage, or compassion into getting a divorce.
As a therapist, mediator, attorney, and Chopra-certified Vedic Master, I’ve successfully applied this approach to thousands of couples in my twenty years of private practice.
Couplesno longer have to spend years “on the fence” in an unhappy, dysfunctional relationship.
Through this book, readers will learn how to set healthy boundaries, as well as how to ask for what they truly want and need — even if it means they can only give it to themselves!
Compassionate Mediation is about helping couples get “unstuck” and clear so they can move forward—whether that means reviving their marriage and starting anew—or ending the relationship with compassion for both their sakes.
In-between the weeping, beauty abounds: my story
I once was where you are now, and it’s a painful, lonely place.
I discussed my situation with friends, family members, and loved ones, but in the end, no one could make the decision for me.
There were moments when I was clear and determined, but more often, I was trapped in a state of limbo, unable to leave but unhappy in the marriage. Because I’ve experienced divorce firsthand, I have much to share about what to do—and what NOT to do.
For years, I asked myself, “Should I stay or should I go?”
In the decade it took me to finally decide, I took the pain of my own failings and missteps, and turned them into lessons learned and methods developed that are now helping others succeed.
As I struggled with my own marriage and emotions, I returned to school to study psychotherapy, earning my second graduate degree and becoming a licensed clinical professional counselor, as well as a mediator and attorney.
Surely, I thought, as a lawyer, mediator, and therapist, I could get us through our divorce as smoothly and painlessly as possible. But trying to mediate your own divorce is like trying to deliver your own baby. Sure, it may be remotely possible, but ultimately, it’s way too difficult.
I tried to make our divorce “picture perfect,” until I realized: codependence isn’t the same thing as compassion, and that yes, LOVE is the answer, but it starts with loving your SELF.
During my journey of self-discovery and healing, I became the oldest Vedic Master trained by Deepak Chopra, David Simon, and Davidji at the Chopra Center University (the trifecta of certifications). I used to say I got my Medicare card in May and my Vedic Master card in June.
I’ve always believed that our struggles are part of our dharma or purpose.
We can only offer wisdom to others by healing ourselves.
I’ve learned through the years that being open and vulnerable with others, that sharing from the heart is more powerful medicine than ten degrees or theories. Hard-earned wisdom has finally surpassed my education, and I want to share it all.
It’s the mistakes I made along the way that may help you the most.
This book will lead you through the steps you need to take so you can resolve your issues for the highest good of all concerned. Love is the answer, and it starts with loving your SELF.
Through the art of Compassionate Mediation, you’ll learn how to heal burdens from your past, let go of limiting beliefs, connect to your Spiritual Source, and relate from your highest and best SELF.
So instead of asking the question “Should I stay or should I go?” you’ll now consider, “How can I bring my best SELF to this relationship and transform it from the inside out?”
Get your FREE CHAPTER HERE: http://www.lindakrollbook.com/
I'd like to help you heal and transform your relationships.
Please just take a deep breath.
With so much that's been going on in the world right now, our relationships are strained to the limit.
Whether there's too much togetherness, not enough hugs, whatever we're missing, we have ways of reacting that aren't always our best SELF.
Think of a challenging relationship.
When you think of a relationship right now that you're having conflict with, or that's making you a little uncomfortable, just notice what happens to your body.
Notice the stories you tell yourself about the other person and notice how you feel, how you get constricted inside.
I want to help you get to your best SELF, and — in the next couple minutes — know how to bring that best SELF back to your relationship today to make things better.
Rumi said, “We're not just the drop in the ocean, we're the ocean in the drop.
When we come from our highest SELF, that mindful, calm, compassionate center, we do connect with that oneness that's in our heart.
That's our soul. That's our spirit that's connected to the other person’s.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
But we're human, so we get reactive and we exile some of our feelings. If we feel hurt, or sad, or mad sometimes, or scared, we've pushed all that aside.
We go out in the world and we manage and we try to be hardworking, or pleasing, or caretaking. And then when that gets too cumbersome, we get extreme in certain ways. So you might be eating too much, or drinking too much, or watching too much TV, or getting depressed, or a number of ways to behave.
Your True SELF is always there.
So let's take a deep breath and know that underneath all of that, you have a very healthy SELF that's calm, clear, and compassionate.
The only time you can change another person is when they're in diapers.
You're not going to change the people in your life right now. You can change in how you're relating to them.
Let's see if you can take a breath, a couple belly breaths. Inhale, belly expands, exhale, release back to your spine. Just a couple more.
Invite all those parts that have judgments, and limiting beliefs, and your walls around your heart, and your filters through which you're seeing the other person — see if those parts can relax just a little bit so that you can get to that calm, compassionate center that is your soul.
Whatever the problem, love is the answer, but it starts with loving yourself.
So, how can you be more loving to yourself right now?
What can you do to take care of yourself, to meditate more, to journal, to go for walks — to give yourself the attention, affection, appreciation, and acceptance that you're looking for from someone else?
The more you fill up with your own compassion for everything that you're going through right now — and I'm sure there is a lot that each of us is going through right now — when you have compassion for yourself and fill up with that, it will then be emanating from you and you'll bring more compassion to your life and relationships.
Compassionate Communication
Connect to your best SELF
Let go of limiting beliefs
Unburden pain from your past
Relate from your HEART
You can compassionately communicate as you connect to your highest self with breath, gratitude, meditation, prayer.
Connect to your best self as you let go of your limiting beliefs and give yourself time to unburden pain from the past.
You can stay in the present moment and not regurgitate the past or project it in the future, and then relate from your heart.
It's in your heart where your soul resides.
It's in your heart where you're going to connect.Know that no matter what you're going through, everyone else in your life is going through it now, too.
As you can bring a little more breath, a little more awareness, a little more SELF-leadership, a little more higher consciousness, you can change any relationship starting now.
I wish you love and happiness from my heart to yours, take good care.
To get a FREE Guided Meditation to get to SELF, click here.
Join me to learn how to share Compassionate Mediation® with your clients.
During this time of stress and uncertainty, our personal and professional lives can become challenging and isolating.
For our clients, their relationships can be strained to their limits.
Marriages are meant to last for “better or worse, until death do us part.” But there was no mention of what to do in a pandemic.
Couples and families can use all the help we can give, and we can give a lot.
I want to share with you my transformational process for relationship healing – Compassionate Mediation®. You can use in your practice now.
If you are a therapist or coach, there are also Continuing Education Credits available. I offer you the methods, strategies, handouts and tools to apply immediately as you expand your expertise and impact – and income.
You can use these tools in person or online — and I’ll show you how.
As a therapist, mediator, attorney, and Chopra-Certified teacher of meditation, yoga, and Ayurveda, I have created a program that covers emotional and spiritual healing along with financial and legal information and support.
Compassionate Mediation® is NOT just for individuals or couples considering divorce. Any relationship that needs healing or transformation will benefit — even if only one member of the relationship learns these skills.
Sometimes the willingness to consider what an ending may look like provides the impetus to create a new beginning together.
Please join me as we help relationships heal all over the world. https://lindakroll.com/Roadmap.
ABOUT LINDA
You can heal and transform all your relationships with Compassionate Communication and Compassionate Mediation®.
Love is always the answer – and it starts with loving your SELF.
Learn how to add more peace, love and joy to your life as you practice exquisite SELF care.
Linda Kroll is the author of the bestselling Compassionate Mediation® for Relationships at a Crossroads: Add Passion to Your Marriage or Compassion to Your Divorce —for a free chapter, go to http://www.lindakrollbook.com/
Linda is also author of the he Kindle bookhttps://amzn.to/2So8AKCCompassionate Divorce -Changing the Face of Divorce, One Heart at a Time. https://amzn.to/2So8AKC
Founder of Compassionate Communication Academy. Linda believes, “Families need not be “broken,” but can be peacefully and respectfully “re-structured.”
You can discover ways to improve your marriage after you take the Unhappy Marriage Quiz. www.LindaKroll.com/RA
Linda is a therapist, mediator, attorney, and Chopra Certified Master Teacher of Meditation, Yoga and Ayurveda. She combines psychology, spirituality, financial and legal information along with her heart, humor, personal experience and professional expertise.
Linda also invites guests she loves to share who offer information, guidance and support to help you live your best life —and become the change you want to see in your relationships and in the world.
Compassionate Communication Creates New Beginnings when You're Thinking of Divorce.
The night before I was to be in court to finalize my divorce after a very long separation, I was moved to convert my sadness, hurt and anger into hope for a new beginning. If your marriage has difficulties, or you're thinking of divorce, I want to share with you how I did that for myself.
I wrote a prayer.
When I arrived at the courtroom, I gave a copy to my formerly beloved (and soon to be ex) husband and to his attorney. I hoped to end our marriage in a way that would set the tone for a peaceful and respectful co-creation of our future restructured family.
I wanted us to always be able to Compassionately Communicate –to connect our highest and best SELF, let go of all the limiting (and judgmental) beliefs we held, unburdened pain from the past, and relate from our hearts.
I hoped we could protect our children from the shrapnel of any more animosity or conflict.
I offered it as my prayer, and for some, it can be an intention. It was my heartfelt request for a future of respectful co-parenting, genuine friendship and Compassionate Communication.
I hope others can set the same intention or recite the same prayer.
“Love is the answer – and it starts with loving your SELF.” Linda Kroll
Linda’s Settlement Prayer
I pray for a peaceful and respectful settlement meeting, in which all parties come together from their Highest Selves and their truest connection to Your guidance, wisdom and love.
I pray that the parts of ourselves that are angry, fearful, defensive, revengeful, retributive, punitive, unloving, unforgiving, sad, young, abandoned, resentful, negative, hurting and hurtful – that all these parts be quelled with the leadership of the Self, coming from a place of trust in Your presence and light.
I pray for compassion, forgiveness, gratitude and appreciation. Although our marriage has come down to a business closing of money and asset division, I ask that we remember the love that brought us together, and the wonderful children, which our union has borne. For their sakes as well as our own, we wish to put an end to this process in as respectful and loving a way as possible.
Although we each carry our sadness and pain and mutual regrets, I pray that we can look beyond this difficult period to a time when we can be friends and coexist peacefully. I pray that our once intact family can be rearranged to two intact and loving homes, where our children feel connected and comfortable. I pray that we can hold in a different light the love that once joined us forever; that on the deepest level we wish each other well as we let go and let G-d direct our lives.
For the sake of all we once had, and for all we had planned to share together, let us now finalize the terms of our marital dissolution so that we are both free to get on with our lives.
Let us complete this last painful task with a sense of trust in the love we once shared and hopefully can remember after this part is over. Let us not work from purely simple and self-serving motives, but keep in mind the general welfare of each of us, and our children. Let us request our attorneys to contribute what is needed for the mutual benefit of all concerned.
In the end, let us know that we behaved civilly, that we can look back with a clear conscience, and that as much as we could, we came from our hearts. God bless us and direct us all. Amen.
His lawyer looked it over, and jokingly asked him, “Are there any changes you want to make in this document?”
We all laughed —sometimes through our tears – which is kind of like life.
Even in the heartache, there can come healing and hope.
If you or someone you know is looking at a separation or divorce, please remember that together we can change the face of divorce, one heart at a time.
To learn how to offer this process to your clients, please get the FREE ROADMAP and Video Introduction to Compassionate Mediation®
About Linda
As a therapist, mediator, attorney, and author, I help others avoid the pain that my family suffered. My transformational processes of Compassionate Mediation® and SELF-Led Divorce® bring peaceful resolution instead of heartbreak.
If your relationship is at a crossroad, you ‘can add passion to your marriage or compassion to your divorce with Compassionate Communication and Compassionate Mediation®. Please visit www.LindaKroll.com for your free chapter of my bestselling book, and for more free gifts and resources to help you add more peace, love and joy to your life – starting now.
You can also take my Relationship Assessment and learn how to make things better!
If you’re a heart-centered professional (therapist, mediator, attorney, coach or counselor,) you can learn how to offer these processes to your clients at www.CompassionateMediationTraining.com.
Families need not be “broken,” but can be peacefully and respectfully “re-structured.”
